About Me

Friday, September 30, 2011

QoL Event - Day 1

My company is participating in the Qualities of Life event held at Suntec City and today was the first day of the event. It's basically a healthcare event. Most of us vendors showcased our healthcare products but there were a handful of oddities like Ayam, the household brand selling their tuna and sardine. They may seem kinda out of place there but from the looks of things, their sales seemed to be beating everyone else's.

I was supposed to reach our booth at 10:30am to set up the props and products and got up at 7am plus but my manager suddenly sent me a SMS message at 8am telling me to be there by 10am. That meant I had to take a cab there since firstly, it was drizzling and secondly, the time I woke up was catered for me to reach there at 10:30am, not 10am. Bugger that. And no, I don't think I can claim the cab fare.

Our booth

I reached our booth in hall 404 a few minutes before 10am and proceeded to set up our booth with Luke, one of our Product Managers who was already there. The rest arrived shortly later.

I've been to lots of IT shows held at Suntec City with my previous company and those experiences were quite horrendously exhausting and I wonder if this event would be the same. By mid-afternoon, however, I came to the conclusion that if IT shows were hell, then this event was a walk in the park. See, the crowd flow was a disappointing thing.

We became so bored with the lack of crowd that we ended up trying to sell our products to one another. You can imagine the dismal situation, huh? We tried recommending our products to what few people who walked by but most of our time was spent shooting the breeze instead. And when anyone wanted to take a look at our products, me & my colleagues would mob the potential customer just to get into the 'excitement'. It wasn't pressure selling, we were looking for things to do.

The highlight at our booth was our 'Wheel of Prizes' that anyone who purchased at least SGD $10 worth of goods were entitled to spin. No matter where the wheel stops at, the customers would win something.

Later, Charmaine & Daxin, the 2 interns attached to my company arrived to help us out and their company did a lot of good to relieve the boredom. Those 2 young girls are funny and they cracked me up.

My lunch

Lunch consisted of yummylicious Nasir Lemak and either I was too hungry or the food was really great. Nah, it was more like a combination of both factors.

I was quite taken aback at how everyone of my colleagues were eating all over the place in the presence of everyone walking by and no effort was made to eat discreetly. Some of us even put our box of food on the display shelves and just munched away. I did the same. If I had done that during the IT shows with my previous company, I would have been screwed for sure. Honestly, I much prefer our current more carefree ways here :) I ain't complaining.

Since I was looking for more things to entertain myself, I sent a string of SMS messages to Jacelyn, my colleague-sister, lying to her about how poor thing I was and nagged at her to come over to accompany and entertain me. So after her work later, she came over. Glad you came, Jace, even if I had to trick you to.

By evening, it was clear that sales was gonna continue to suck because the crowd flow remained pathetic. So Jason told us to pack up at around 19:30pm and we left the hall by 20:00pm. We were quite surprised as we walked out that the guard was in the process of closing the exhibition hall doors. He told us that the event was supposed to end at 20:00pm. We all thought it was supposed to end at 21:00pm. Jeez..

Tawandang

So me, Jace, Charmaine and Daxin went over to Tawandang Brewery on the ground floor of Suntec to relax a little. I needed that since my soles were kinda tired from having to stand around for most parts of the day. They have a live band at the front section of the place but we went to the outdoor seats at the back section instead where it was humid and muggy as hell.

Anyway, apart from the name, I didn't see what was so Thai about Tawandang, honestly. The place felt more like an European pub or American watering hole to me for some reason.

When it was time to foot the bill, I used my Citibank SMRT credit card which I forgot is already expired but strangely, it still enables me to pay for my traveling using the SMRT and public buses, which is the reason why I'm still keeping it. I'm using my small Guess wallet today that only allows me to carry a limited amount of cards, instead of my bigger Braun Buffel wallet that allows me to keep all my cards in it. My SMRT credit card was the only credit card I brought with me today since I had to pay for transportation and didn't think I would have to use any credit card for other purpose today anyway. Bad idea.

So my card couldn't make the transaction because I forgot about its expired date and I ended up having to use cash to pay instead. That drew an "Again?!" from Jace since the first time that happened was when she was with me at some other place last time when I was using the same wallet. The girls already paid me their share (after rejecting the discounts I offered them myself) and so, I dug up all those cash notes they gave me and used them to pay the bill.

Shite, that was embarrassing and I really need to get off my ass and request for an updated SMRT card. Anyway, the following day, I squeezed my Citibank Dividend card into my Guess wallet. Just as well, because the following night, I went to Tawandang again with Miss Psychedelic.